1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to the communications field, and in particular to an interaction of an electronic reading device with an address pattern.
2. Description of Related Art
Numerous devices exist for accepting user input and controlling user interaction with desktop and portable computers, personal digital assistance (PDAs), mobile phones, and other types of electronic devices. For example, a keyboard can be used to accept typed input and other types of commands, a mouse or a track-ball can be used to provide relative motion input as well as various types of point-and-click selections, a keypad can be used to provide input of numerical data and functional commands, navigational keys can be used for scrolling lists or otherwise repositioning a cursor, and various types of touchpads or touchscreens can be used to provide absolute positional coordinate inputs. Each type of mechanism for accepting input and for supporting user interaction has benefits and disadvantages in terms of size, convenience, flexibility, responsiveness, and easy of use. Generally, the selection of a particular type of input mechanism is dependent upon the function of the application and the degree and type of interaction required.
With the ever expanding capabilities and availability of applications both on the Internet and the area of wireless technology, there continues to be a need to develop and provide new mechanisms for accepting input and interacting with users. In particular, some of the existing technologies suffer from drawbacks or limitations, such as size and flexibility, that make them impractical and/or inconvenient to use in some situations. By expanding the range of mechanisms for supporting user interaction, application developers and end-users can have greater flexibility in the selection of input devices. Preferably, any such new mechanisms will provide increased flexibility and will maximize user convenience. In addition, the development of new mechanisms for interacting with users can expand the realm of potential applications.
For example, while a keyboard typically provides a great deal of flexibility, particularly when it is used in connection with a mouse, a touchscreen, or other navigational device, its size makes it inconvenient in many cases, especially in the wireless context.
The present invention comprises a method and system for performing specific functions based on a portion of an address pattern that is detected by an electronic reading device. When a portion of the address pattern is detected, the detected portion is compared with different areas of address patterns stored in a database memory to identify a function that corresponds to the detected portion of the address pattern. Once a specific function is identified, a controller or processor performs the specific function.
In one embodiment of the invention, the electronic reading device stores and performs a few basic functions corresponding to particular address patterns. In addition, instead of identifying and performing the function based solely on the detected pattern, the function can be initiated by writing a specific symbol either in any location or over a particular pattern. For example, the function might include storing or deleting information in the electronic reading device, sending information to another electronic device via a radio interface, and/or sending information to an Internet address.
In another aspect of the invention, different areas of a specially formatted surface that includes various portions of an address pattern can be associated with different functions or applications. For example, the surface can be a paper having fields associated with: handwriting to text translation, language translation of messages, spell help, word translation wherein an audio translation is delivered to a mobile phone, accessing web pages, creating an electronic credit card receipt, sending information relating to a product or purchase, initiating a search on a search engine, and/or signature recognition. The particular function performed can be downloaded to the electronic reading device or to a related device for execution or might be executed in a remote server.
Furthermore, the formatted surface might include preprinted icons associated with specific functions or with a retrieval of specific information. Moreover, sheets of paper that include different address patterns can be organized into a notebook, wherein a detection of a particular address pattern allows the particular sheet of paper to be identified.